Portuguese Politician: 'We Have An Atomic Bomb That We Can Use In The Face Of The Germans And The French'

And see, this is the problem with assuming that Europe can just muddle along on its current path.

At some point, the political scene in some country could get so toxic that a politician rises up who just refuses to play by the EU's plan, and torpedo's the whole thing with some kind of hard default.

"We have an atomic bomb that we can use in the face of the Germans and the French: this atomic bomb is simply that we won't pay," said Pedro Nuno Santos, vice-president of the Socialist Party in the parliament.

"Debt is our only weapon and we must use it to impose better conditions, because recession itself is what is stopping us complying with the (EU-IMF Troika) accord. We should make the legs of the German bankers tremble," he said.

Evidently Nuno Santos would like to see all of the hobbled Southern European states band together to fight back against the German/French-imposed austerity regimes.

Europe's future stability depends on keeping the likes of Nuno Santos (as well as the likes of Timo Soini in Finland) in check.